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Signing in issues

Vuley

Posted 25 March 2006 - 09:54 PM

Okay, I have two computers and two problems. The first I'll address here. My brother lent me his computer to do whatever I can to fix it. Compared to what I have, this thing's awesome.

From what I can tell, his computer has been jacked up by a virus. The computer starts up just fine, and the welcome screen appears. Then, I click a name. It reads "Loading your personalized settings..." and then flashes the desktop. After that, the desktop flashes off, the welcome screen appears again, and the name has "Logging off.../Saving your settings..." beneath it. Sometimes, the desktop doesn't even flash up.

Starting up with "Last known good settings" doesn't work, Safe mode does the same thing, and so I can't get into any of the restore utilities. The worst thing is, I have lost my Windows XP disk, and I don't think my brother has one. Any suggestions?

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Retired Tech

Posted 26 March 2006 - 01:03 AM

Retired Tech

Retired Staff

Retired Staff

20,563 posts

You will probably need to borrow and XP CD for this, it needs to be the same version as was originally installed, if you downloaded SP2 then you need an SP1 XP CD. If you use it to repair XP then you need to enter your product key, not the one from the borrowed CD

Vuley

Posted 26 March 2006 - 11:48 PM

Vuley

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Topic Starter

Member

8 posts

I was looking through some old boxes today and I found a three-disk Windows XP installation set. So, I followed the insturctions, written and on-screen, and got the computer back up and running. Sadly, but not unexpected, everything had to be wiped from the hard drive, and some drivers refuse to load, but it'll soon be out of my hands and into my brother's.
Thanks for the help. I was actually trying to see if there was a way to fix it without the disk(s), but, based on the response, there probably wasn't.

While I'm thinking about it, a bubble keeps popping up in the bottom right to get me to activate Windows, but when I click the bubble, the window says that "Windows is already activated. Click OK to exit." When I click OK, however, after I restart the bubble in the bottom right pops up again saying it's not activated yet. I'm clueless on this.

Retired Tech

Posted 26 March 2006 - 11:59 PM

Vuley

Posted 27 March 2006 - 12:04 AM

Vuley

New Member

Topic Starter

Member

8 posts

I'm about to try that.

First: Should I have gotten a window or prompt to activate Windows, or is it automatic during installation? I was never asked to do so, and the bubble just confuses the heck out of me. Mostly I'm asking because the page says "After you successfully install and activate Windows XP..." and I am not sure if I ever successfully activated it.

Retired Tech

Posted 27 March 2006 - 12:12 AM

Vuley

Posted 27 March 2006 - 12:21 AM

Vuley

New Member

Topic Starter

Member

8 posts

Okay, something's not right here. I restarted the computer in safe mode, like it tells me to, and I open the Run dialog box. When I type any key on the keyboard, the mouse and keyboard both freeze, but the cursor on the screen keeps blinking.

Vuley

Posted 28 March 2006 - 03:20 PM

Okay, finished with that, and half the files it asked for weren't there. Still asks to activate windows, and the balloon never changes how many days I have left. Thirty til the end of time, I suppose.

I figured I could ignore it for a bit, and just get used to it. No. Can't do that.

I tried to install the .NET Framework, and succeeded, to an extent. I was told to restart. I did. Now, when I log on, it says "This copy of Windows must be activated with Microsoft before you can log on. Do you want to activate Windows now?" Why yes, I do.

It logs me in temporarily, flashes up that big blue window that says Windows is already activated, I hit OK, and it logs me right back off, only to repeat this process. I'm back where I started, just being screwed over by Windows rather than a virus. What now?